QATAR: SPORTS AND MODERN SLAVERY

Poor Working Conditions and Modern Slavery in the Private Security Industry in Qatar

Ahead of Qatar hosting the 2022 World Cup, the world started to scrutinise migrant labour practices in the country, including in the private security sector. Several reports, including reports by The Graduate Institute and UNI Global Union as well as Amnesty International, revealed allegations of labour abuse and forced labour indications within the private security industry and among migrant employee positions more generally. One private security provider, G4S, was blacklisted by the Norwegian Sovereign Investment fund due to their potential link to migrant worker abuse in Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.

Keywords: recruitment fees, poor working conditions, forced labour, discrimination

Background

Qatar is extremely reliant on migrant labour, with about 95% of its workforce being made up of migrant workers. Tens of thousands of individuals are employed in Qatar´s private security sector, a large part of which is made up by migrant workers.

Since 2010, when FIFA awarded Qatar the rights to host the 2022 FIFA World Cup, there has been increasing attention paid to the treatment of Qatar’s migrant workers. In 2017, following reports of labour abuse and a complaint lodged by workers’ groups at the International Labour Organization (ILO), Qatar signed an agreement with the ILO committing itself to a three-year reform process.

However, reports reveal that labour abuses and elements of forced labour are still prevalent within various employment sectors in Qatar, including the private security sector. A 2021 United States Trafficking in Persons report alleged that Qatar “did not routinely investigate crimes such as employer passport retention, withholding of wages, labour violations, and complaints of abuse as potential trafficking crimes.” The report further alleged that authorities actually arrested, detained, and deported potential trafficking victims, noting that existing Qatar judicial processes were inadequate to enforce labour law within the country.

The Incident

An Amnesty International research project revealed that private security personnel are subjected to a range of labour abuses, including long working hours, lack of rest days, arbitrary or disproportionate financial penalties, potentially dangerous working conditions, underpayment of overtime work, substandard living conditions, and discrimination on the basis of race, nationality, and language.

Many security guards interviewed for the research project indicated that they frequently worked up to 12 hours a day, going months or even years without a day off. Often, guards were deployed to work these long hours in intense heat. Living facilities provided by the companies were reported to be overcrowded and unsanitary.

Additionally, guards interviewed across five security companies told Amnesty International that companies treated employees differently depending on their nationality, race, and working conditions. Most security guards reported earning the minimum basic monthly wage, with some companies not paying overtime according to the rate mandated by law.

The research project also discovered that elements of forced labour (as defined under the International Labor Organization Convention on Forced Labour) are present in the operations of several private security companies, namely involuntary work and threat of penalty.

These penalties included deductions of between one-to-thirteen days’ pay. Further, lingering aspects of the Qatari “Kafala” sponsorship system means that workers face various risks, including contract termination and deportation, if they challenge their supervisors. This vulnerability essentially forces security guards to be subjected to these extremely poor working conditions, given that the potential penalties for complaining or challenging their supervisors are heavy.

Finally, private security personnel, particularly migrant workers, are often subject to abusive recruitment practices, passport confiscation, and restrictions on changing jobs.

For example, many workers need to pay fees to agents during the recruitment process, and most need to borrow money or take out loans to pay these costs. Recruitment agents often promise higher salaries and better working conditions to induce the payment of these fees. Upon arrival in Qatar, the working conditions and pay would often not align with the recruiter’s promises. However, due to the incurred debt and other factors, workers often still want or need to remain with the employer. In another study, 71% of workers reported facing difficulties repaying their loans, citing low salaries, the need to send financial support to their family, and the cost of living in Qatar.

Guards from several private security companies reported that their employers would confiscate worker’s passports for a specified period of time. Additionally, several security guards reported that there were incidents in which current employers stood in the way of the employee moving to another employer.

Legal Aspects

Qatar is party to ILO conventions and other treaties which prohibit forced labour and other human rights abuses. All people working on its territory should receive regular and full payment of wages, rest time, limited hours, and decent working and living conditions.

The International Code of Conduct

The International Code of Conduct prohibits Member and Affiliate companies from engaging in the trafficking of persons, and requires their personnel to report any instances of trafficking to Competent Authorities (section 39). The International Code of Conduct defines human trafficking, in this context, as the recruitment, harbouring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for labour or services through the use of force, fraud, or coercion for the purposes of subjection to involuntary servitude, debt bondage, or slavery.

Resources on Human Trafficking

Further, the International Code of Conduct prohibits Member and Affiliate Companies from using slavery, forced or compulsory labour, or to be complicit in any other entity´s use of such labour (section 40).

Resources on the Prohibition of Slavery and Forced Labour

Companies should hold passports, other travel documents, or other identification documents of their Personnel for the shortest period of time reasonable for administrative processing or other legitimate purposes (section 54)

The Code prescribes companies to provide their personnel with a safe and healthy working environment (section 64)

Other rules pertaining to working conditions in the International Code of Conduct for Security Providers (the Code) include:

Prohibition of discrimination (section 42)
Selection and vetting of personnel (sections 45 to 49)
Selection and vetting of subcontractors (sections 50, 51)
Company policies and personnel contracts (section 52 to 54)
Training (section 55)
Weapons training (section 59)
Harassment (section 65)
Grievance procedures (section 67, 68)

Impact

In November 2020, the Norwegian wealth fund decided to no longer invest in G4S because of an “unacceptable risk” that the firm violated the rights of migrant workers in Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.

In making this determination, the ethics council did not officially consider whether G4S had used forced labour, but said “the company’s practice – in the worst cases – could place workers under constraint.” The council focused on G4S’s use of migrant workers from India, Pakistan, and Nepal for contracts across the Middle East.

After the exclusion of G4S, the fund decided to continue to investigate firms and recommend additional exclusions based on the treatment of migrant workers.

Discussion

How can private security companies and their clients ensure that their supply chains do not involve modern slavery, human trafficking or violations of the workers rights under international and domestic labour standards and laws?

How can the recruiting practices of private security companies be improved to prevent the payment of recruitment fees?

Related incident

Nepali Contractors Killed in Iraq

Sources

Case prepared by Madison Zeeman

Clause de non-responsabilité

Conformément à l’avis de non-responsabilité figurant sur la page d’accueil, ni l’Association Internationale du Code de Conduite ni les auteurs ne peuvent être identifiés avec les opinions exprimées dans le texte ou les sources incluses dans « Plaider en Faveur d’une Sécurité Responsable : Carte de Cas du Code de Conduite International ».